


In A City On Fire

by rainingover



Series: From the Ground Up [1]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, M/M, Multi, Pandemics, Space Stations, minhyuk centric, minor character illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-21 18:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8255702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/pseuds/rainingover
Summary: Within ten years of the first wave of the pandemic, cities were ghost towns running on borrowed time, on pilfered fuel and back alley deals.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Infictions 2016. A huge thanks to my wonderfully talented & supportive teammates for letting me be a part of this with them :)!

Minhyuk can't remember the first wave of the pandemic. He wasn’t even born when it first hit, crashing over the human race in a tidal wave of pain and suffering. He knows that over two thirds of the population of the city he grew up in were wiped out in the space of three years, and that after that the dwindling population of the entire planet grew smaller and smaller over time, the disease never truly dying off.

Within ten years, cities were ghost towns running on borrowed time, on pilfered fuel and back alley deals. 

Even those who had survived the pandemic so far began moving out of the city in large numbers. Those who could afford it fled upwards; boarding the brand new space stations and beginning a new, healthier, life above the desolation that Earth became. Those less fortunate, whose feet remained on solid ground, began fleeing the concrete jungles for open spaces, for green fields and forests, in the hope that fresh air would keep them breathing. 

Minhyuk’s family didn't even leave the city. Even as the criminal underbelly  started to rear it’s head - a head which grew uglier and uglier by the year, it's violence increasing with the desperation of the people - they stayed there, lived amongst it. Died amongst it, too. 

Minhyuk's father had lost his life to the disease when Minhyuk was only four, and his grandparents had died not long after that. 

 

\--

 

For a while, Minhyuk dreamt about a life elsewhere. 

At first, he dreamt about life on the space stations, watched the flickering of lights far away in the distance every night before he slept (or tried to at least; sleeping in the city was never easy). Only the richest of the remaining population had been allocated living spaces on the space stations at first. The richest, those with the most power and those that could be  _ used _ by those with power - scientists, doctors, professors: all swept up into the sky to carry on living, away from the spreading plague.

Everyone else thought that maybe their turn would come in time, but it never had. 

So, as Minhyuk grew older, he stopped imagining life as a stow-away inside a shuttle ship heading up to the space stations and began to think up more realistic solutions to leaving the city behind.

Minhyuk had suggested it to his mother once, not long after he’d turned fifteen: suggested leaving their home and travelling into the countryside, away from the dirt, the danger and the noise. There was no guarantee that those things wouldn't exist where they ended up, but at least dying surrounded by what was left of nature sounded better than dying in the fire and rubble of the city. 

But the plan had never taken hold. His mother didn't want to leave the house that his father had built for them. She wouldn't go, and he would never leave her behind unless he really had to.

Minhyuk doesn't think about packing up and travelling out of the sprawl any longer.  And, anyway, he's decided that living in the middle of the city can have its perks. 

He explains these perks to one of the chefs from the main space station, talking as a way to pass the time as he loads boxes of fresh tomatoes (the ones grown in the greenhouses the government keep outside of the city to feed the people on the space stations, and no one else) into the loading bay of the ship.

“I can get work here -- stuff like this. I'm useful. And it can be good to be amongst it all - to hear the news from up there before anyone else does.” He nods towards the sky, towards the stations thousands of feet above his head. “Well, before anyone else left down here hears it, anyway.”

The man isn't really listening. He mumbles something like, “Rather you than me,” and presses three coins into the palm of Minhyuk’s hand.

“Is this it? I was told this job would pay ten coins.”  Minhyuk can’t help but feel disappointed. He’s running out of things to trade and currency (any currency; it’s all the same these days) is hard to come by on earth. Ten coins would have bought him enough food and water to last over the next couple of months. Three coins means more early mornings to be spent waiting down by the shuttle stop before dawn, hoping that one of the transporters travelling to and from the space station with supplies will need an errand running, and that they’ll be willing to give away something worthwhile in return for Minhyuk doing it.

“You were told wrong,” The chef replies and doesn't even bother to look him in the eye as he heads back inside the loading bay. 

Minhyuk thinks to follow him, but it's illegal for unauthorised personnel to set foot on a government ship, and, as much as he doesn't care much for his own life, he cares for his mother’s, and for his friends, or whatever they are. So he pockets the three coins, kicks at the curb to vent some of his frustration, and turns away.

It’s only just past daybreak and there aren’t many people on the streets, so the man taking photographs of what is left of the burnt out city hall sticks out like -- well, like someone who isn’t used to the gangs and robberies that take place round here. Minhyuk approaches him slowly and says, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

The man shakes his head. Minhyuk wonders if he is a government worker, if maybe they haven’t given up completely on the people left on Earth. 

He doesn’t ask, though, just in case he’d be disappointed by the answer. Instead he says, “I’d be careful with that, if I were you,” and motions towards his camera. “I mean, unless you want to be mugged.”

He lets the man take a photo of him there, in front of the scorched bricks that once housed lawmakers and officials, and now acts as shelter to lawbreakers and lost people. The man asks his name, who he lives with and how many of his family are still alive and nods earnestly as Minhyuk talks. “What is this for?” Minhyuk asks, afterwards, and the man pauses before he replies. “Just… Information gathering. It’s for a good cause,” he adds, and Minhyuk decides that he believes him.

 

\--

 

Sometimes he wonders who would really mourn him if he succumbed to the disease. If he got sick, felt the cold in his bones, the burning hot sensation behind his eyes. Because that's how it starts, everyone knows. It always starts the same way, and it almost always ends the same way too. 

(With death.)

He hopes his mother would. She becomes more and more distracted by the day. More tired, less interested in the future, but, despite that, she is still his mother. His only family. He's all she has and she all he has.

Or, she was. Before he met them. 

They came out of nowhere; he hadn't seen them in the city when he was growing up, though he couldn't believe anyone would move  _ into  _ the city of their own choice, especially now. He'd asked them once, when he’d found out they really had travelled into the grey desolation, “Why would you come here, when you could be literally anywhere else?”

Hyunwoo had replied, “Why not?” And Minhyuk had been about to reel off a thousand reasons, when Hoseok had said, “I guess we just wanted to see -- if there was anything left out this way.”

“I guess you have your answer,” Minhyuk had replied, as they had stared down across the broken remains of downtown from the old viewing point. “Here is what's left. Fuck all.” It came out more bitterly than Minhyuk intended. 

They'd stuck around anyway. 

 

\--

 

Minhyuk sleeps in late. He can tell it’s past daybreak when he wakes, watches tiny slivers of light dancing across his bare arm where it sneaks in through what is left of the makeshift curtains. It’s hot in the city; he guesses it must be midsummer, because of the heat and because of the sick, more sick than he has seen in months.

The disease always spreads faster in the warmer months. It’s always there, always clinging on to the edges of what is left of society, trying to grasp hold again, like it did when the last big wave hit three years before. Minhyuk had been sure it was his turn to die, had woken up on countless nights sure he could feel the cold creeping into his bones. 

Had spent hours beside his mother’s bed asking her how she felt and interpreting her murmurs and soft voice. He had come to the conclusion that she was tired, she was sad and lonely, grieving for a life they’d lost long ago, but she wasn't sick. Minhyuk counted his blessings for that every day.

He counts his blessing now, counts them off on his fingers: His mother, Hoseok, Hyunwoo, their health. And finally, the fifth blessing, hope. 

Hope for a cure that that people up there on the space station must be working on. Must be close to finding now, surely. He hears rumours now and then, whispers that make their way down with the transporters. Rumours of pills, of new drugs, and of synthetic organs that the government are paying some top scientist to harvest. Organs that will be transplanted into all of the sick. That could _ cure t _ he sick, reuniting the people left on Earth with the lucky ones, the tiny slice of human life rich enough or important enough to live on the space stations, away from the suffering. 

It’s all just talk, at least at the moment. Hyunwoo reminds Minhyuk of this as the three of them share stale bread and a handful of fruit Minhyuk has never known the name of. 

“Can we not have dreams? Way to kick me when I’m down.” Minhyuk pouts.

Hyunwoo says, “You can say ‘I told you so’ to me when it happens. I’m sure you'll enjoy that.”

Minhyuk smiles again. “Yeah, I definitely will.” He pockets two of the fruits and some bread for his mother. Says, “Can I come back here tonight?”

Hoseok laughs. “Why do you still ask us that? You're with us now, you can come back whenever you want to.”

It’s nice, to be wanted. To be part of something. It’s kind of like having a family again, in some messed up way. 

He’d asked them, when they first showed up outside the market, if they were brothers.

“Do we look like brothers?” One of them - he can't remember which now - had scoffed.

He'd shrugged. 

“We're definitely not related.” The other had said, more kindly. Voice lined with amusement.

It was a little less than two months later, just after his twenty first birthday, that he'd really understood what they were to each other. Not brothers. Brothers don't choose to be together, they just are. But Hoseok and Hyunwoo had chosen to be together through -- well, through everything.

And now they'd chosen to be with him, too.

 

\--

 

It's Hoseok who hears rumours about the synthetic organs first. 

Mentions it as they sit in the overgrown grass at the top of the hill and watch a fire burn in the distance, out at the edge of the city.

He passes a small water tankard filled with some particularly potent moonshine to Hyunwoo, grimaces at the burn in his throat and looks purposefully at Minhyuk as he says, “Don’t get excited, but I've heard a pretty interesting rumour."

Minhyuk takes the moonshine next, reels away at the harsh, chemical smell from inside. He takes a deep breath of air, polluted, smoky, but as fresh as he's ever known it, before swigging from the tankard. He scrunches his eyes up as he swallows. Coughs out, "Damn, that's strong," as he passes the tankard back to Hoseok.

"I dread to think what that guy puts in this stuff," Hyunwoo watches Hoseok drink. "How many coins did it cost us this time?"

"None." Hoseok winces as the liquid hits the back his throat. "I traded some of our firewood for it. We had a lot left over."

Hyunwoo hums a response. Is counting coins in his head. 

Minhyuk says, "Do you think it's getting warmer in the evenings?"

"No, I think you're just good at stealing our body-heat,” Hoseok replies.

Minhyuk shrugs. "I’m a survivalist, it’s in my nature." He grins. "Anyway, tell us more about that rumour."

Hoseok rolls his eyes, as if he knew Minhyuk would latch onto the rumours first. "People are saying that the government have commissioned some super scientist to create these man-made organs to replace the failing organs of the sick."

"What? Like lungs. hearts, livers and stuff?"

"I don't know exactly. Just-- synthetic organs." Hoseok shrugs. "It’s going to be the key to humanity's survival, apparently. It's all the transporters were talking about down at the market today. Which, you would have known if you'd got out of bed and come with me." He kicks out at Minhyuk's shin.

Minhyuk doesn't take the bait, doesn't kick back like he usually would. He doesn't even make some vaguely crude remark about the bed they all share. His mind is already whirring, already thinking of the possibilities. Synthetic organs, the key to healing the sick. The key to surviving the plague.

He envisions a sky filled with bright stars, and only stars. Envisions space stations being decommissioned, envisions the city becoming what he's heard it once was - a place brimming with opportunity and life, earth beneath everybody’s feet.

It's not until Hyunwoo is pressing the tankard into his hand that he realises that his mind has wandered off, wandered forward in time, or maybe just back in time. Far away from the reality of life as they know it -- an abandoned storefront as their apartment, a tankard of homemade moonshine traded for firewood, day a battle for survival, of watching closely for signs of the disease to appear within one of the people that they love.

"I knew he'd get too excited," Hoseok is saying to Hyunwoo, his voice far away, but Minhyuk doesn’t even mind.

He takes a long drink from the tankard and doesn't even cough as the liquid burns his throat.

 

\--

 

Minhyuk is fighting off sleep, his eyelids heavy, his body warm. “What do you think it was like here, before?” He asks the two men lying next to him. 

Hyunwoo has his eyes closed, but he responds. “Before what?”

“Before everyone started to die. Before the government disappeared up there and left us behind to die.” Minhyuk points towards the ceiling of their room. 

“Busier…”

“Obviously.” Minhyuk says. “But-- I just wonder what our lives would be like, what we would do, if we'd be different…”

“Of course we would be. For one, this place would have running water and none of the windows would be broken,” Hoseok joins in, “And it wouldn't be an old store front which we are squatting in. It would be ours, properly  _ ours _ .”

Minhyuk laughs. “And we wouldn't have to drink homemade liquor that tastes of gasoline and cat piss in order to drown out the noises from the street at night.”

“Yeah, but being able to sleep soundly at night isn't just a thing of the past. I heard that the most elite residents of the main space station need fucking _alarm clocks_ to wake up, they sleep so peacefully.” Hyunwoo sighs. “I'm lucky if get more than two hours sleep in a row.” 

“I don't think I'd like to live up there… Too high. Imagine looking down at Earth from so high up, ugh.” Hoseok rolls over, leans up on his elbow. “I feel sick just thinking about it.”

Hyunwoo still doesn’t bother to open his eyes. Says, “I've never really thought about it.”

“What? Never? I don't believe you.” Minhyuk runs his fingers idly across Hoseok’s back, peers over his shoulder at Hyunwoo, lying on the other side of Hoseok. “ _ Everyone _ down here has thought about being up there at least for a while. How could we not? We're not even living down here, we're just surviving.”

“Surviving is better than the alternative,” Hyunwoo replies. “All that matters is being alive. And getting two hours of sleep.”

That night, he gets three.

 

\--

 

There's a teenage girl, maybe around thirteen, kicking at the dust outside Minhyuk's family home when he arrives to deliver his mother some food. 

He hasn’t seen her in four days, and the guilt is eating him up, even though she’s told him a thousand times that she doesn’t need him hanging around the house all of the time.

(“You look like a restless animal,” she’ll say, pausing to ruffle his hair as she reheats soup on the camping stove set up in the corner; their makeshift kitchen, since their real one stopped working years and years before. 

“As long as I know you’re in the city and you’re safe, that’s all that matters.” She’ll smile as she says it. “Just show me your face every once in awhile, that’s all I ask.”).

“You can't go in there.” The girl stops before him as he approaches the house.

“Says who?”

The girl stands up straight, shoulders back. “Woman of the house. I've to keep watch. She's paying me three coins.” She juts out her chin. “Fancy ones.” 

Minhyuk smiles, starts to step around the tiny security guard. “I live here, I'll be allowed--”

“No! She said no one. No one, or I don't get my coins.” The girl blocks the door. “I mean it.”

“But why?” Minhyuk retreats from the door, heads around the side of the house. The girl follows him, her boots echoing against the dusty ground as she stomps beside him.

He pounds his fist against the streaky glass pane of the window. “Mom? Mom!” What’s going on?”

“She doesn’t want anyone else getting sick,” the girl explains. “She wrote it on paper, held it up at the window. But she's sleeping now. Anyway you can leave that stuff here, I'll make sure she gets it.”

Minhyuk stops knocking on the glass. His stomach drops. “What kind of sick?”

“How many kinds are there?” The girl looks at him with disdain. “Look, if you want to go in, I won't stop you, but you'll be paying me the coins if she won’t.”

Minhyuk pays her the coins.

 

\--

 

Minhyuk doesn't even notice Hoseok and Hyunwoo enter the apartment, which makes him feel stupid. Being alert at all times is a necessity, what with the tendency for opportunist thieves to sneak into the inner shopping blocks, armed with knives and old shot-guns and goodness knows what else.

It's been a long time since anyone has been able to sneak up on him, but he's distracted and upset and trying desperately not to cry when they arrive home, so Minhyuk almost jumps when Hoseok's voice fills the room. “Minhyuk? What's up?”

“What? Oh, I--” He glances up from where he lies on his side, knees curled up to his chest, on their mattress in the corner of the room, the room that was once the living area of a pretty swanky high-rise bachelor pad. It's no longer swanky, nor is it a living area. A surviving area, a getting-by area, maybe. Not for living, not anymore. “It’s-- it's probably nothing.”

“Probably?” Hyunwoo puts down the barrel of water he is carrying. "Are you crying?"

Minhyuk doesn't answer that. Just says, “I think my mom is sick,” and winces when his voice breaks.

“You mean…?” He doesn't need to finish the sentence. They all know what Minhyuk is alluding to. The disease. The sickness. The only one that anyone talks about now. Minhyuk knows there was a time when headaches, and fevers, and flu were something that people would talk about, would tell others, "I'm feeling sick," and receive sympathy and medication, but now a headache is the norm. A fever is a part of life, and the flu is practically a vacation.

The disease isn't. It's usually an end.

Minhyuk's eyes are wet, he can’t remember beginning to cry, rubs the back of his sleeve over his cheeks. When he pulls his arm back his sleeve is damp. “She tried to stop me going into the house, she’s scared I’ll… “ He trails off. Doesn’t want to say it. “But -- I can’t just stop seeing her. Anyway, I survived when my dad died. My grandparents too. I’m not staying away now.”

Hyunwoo, ever the voice of reason, says, "Still, you need to be careful."

"I will be." Minhyuk stands up, hurriedly wipes at his cheeks. He's frustrated and he's embarrassed and he so desperately wants to be strong. "I should go back to her now," he says.

Hoseok reaches out, places a hand on his arm and shakes his head. “You should sleep here tonight. Every night. It’s-- you’re not invincible,” His voice softens. “Your mom wouldn’t want you to risk your life to take care of her.”

Minhyuk closes his eyes tightly. 

“Look, we can get up early tomorrow." Hyunwoo walks over to the window ledge and sets about lighting the five candles that line it's edge. Minhyuk hadn't realised how dark it had gotten since he lay down. "We can go out and see if there’s any news from the stations down near the loading bays. Any new medicine, any news about the organs.”

“I’ve been saving up some stuff to trade for coins." Hoseok nods. "We’ll do what we can for her.”

Minhyuk bites at his lip. “She’s going to die.” It comes out in little more than a whisper.

Hoseok shakes his head, pulls Minhyuk towards his chest and wraps his arms around him. "You don't know that," he says against Minhyuk's hair.

Minhyuk hopes he is right.

 

\--

 

Minhyuk lies awake, listens to voices from outside, thinks about his mom and then about the synthetic organs Hoseok had told them about. Wonders if they are more than just a rumour. 

There have always been rumours, stories and whispers that come down from the space stations. Rumours about scientific breakthroughs, about plans to assist more of the population in moving up into the sky. About how close the government are to coming to a permanent solution for society. About how close they are to finding a way to put a stop to the disease once and for all.

There have always been rumours, but they’ve never become fact. Not yet.

Once the sun rises, Minhyuk gently slips out from under Hyunwoo’s arm and away from the warmth of Hoseok’s side, and dresses as quietly as he can. He glances down at their sleeping forms, watches their chests rise and fall in perfect synchronisation. He wonders if he was in sync with them too, when he was lying between them.

They look calm, which is funny, Minhyuk thinks, because calm feels a million miles away from here and now. But he’s grateful for it, the illusion. His heart swells for a moment; he’s thankful they’re in his life now. And he’s thankful that they offered to look for a way to help his mom. But they have themselves to care for, they’re his family too, now, and they deserve to rest.

So Minhyuk dresses as quietly as he can, checks his pockets for a few spare coins, takes a drink of lukewarm water from the container and slips out of the door to head down to the shuttle station by himself.

 

\--

 

The station is busy when Minhyuk arrives, held up in his journey by a fire sweeping through an abandoned apartment block on his usual route. The air smells of gas and smoke when he arrives, and there is a shuttle ship in at the docking pod. Minhyuk guesses it arrived in the night like the shuttles that come to the city usually do; landing with as little noise as possible, which would be easier if the shuttle stops on earth were ever updated or maintained. Minhyuk has heard about the stops at the other end of the journey -- the stops on the space stations are more like the exclusive airport lounges of yesteryear, when air travel meant vacationing in other parts of the world and not leaving it completely. He wonders if some of the people who live up there now even know how bad, how grimy and dangerous and how much of a daily struggle life on solid ground is now. 

He doesn't blame them. He would like to forget to, should he ever have the opportunity. 

Minhyuk recognises the transporter hanging round just inside the shuttle stop. Gunhee. Minhyuk has spoken to him before and received tip-offs about what time to be waiting here to be guaranteed work. 

Gunhee is usually willing to share some news from the space stations too - who has pissed off who in government, how close to a scientific breakthrough the top scientists are, and sillier, frivolous gossip that makes Minhyuk laugh. Information is power, and Gunhee is one of the few people from the stations that doesn't seem to Lord it over those left on Earth with a sneer. Minhyuk is grateful that it's him there today.

“Any work available?” He asks, as always. It's habit, but it would also be stupid to pass up a chance to earn something, especially when he's up before the sun has even fully risen. He has more of a chance of getting something really useful for his mom if he has coins to trade.

Gunhee tilts his head and pauses before replying. “That depends,” he says, leaning against the guardrail that separates him from the curious crowd. 

“On what?”

“On how much you know.” 

Minhyuk doesn’t have time for games, but there isn’t any other way of making a living down here, so he leans on the rail and asks, “About what?”

“About sticking a knife into someone and then successfully stitching them back up.” Gunhee smiles. “So, unless you’re good with a scalpel and know your liver from your kidneys, you're out of luck today.”

Minhyuk blinks, realisation washing over him. The synthetic organs that Hoseok had mentioned. The secret project of the government to prolong the lives of the sick, the one he wasn’t sure he believed was real. They’re _ here _ .

Minhyuk has never felt happier to be wrong about something.

“Come back in a few days, we have a metals run coming up,” Gunhee continues. “You'll need to be here before sunrise, but it'll be worth it. Good money.”

“I'll be here,” Minhyuk replies, mind already buzzing with excitement and hope. Still thinking about the fact that synthetic organs have arrived on Earth, that they haven't been forgotten. 

He heads back to Hyunwoo and Hoseok’s place, stopping to trade a hunting knife he’d found out near the dirt tracks leading away from the city a few weeks before for a basket of fresh bread to take to his mom later.

It starts to rain as he walks, but he doesn’t care one bit. 

 

\--

 

When Minhyuk returns to their apartment, Hyunwoo and Hoseok are still asleep, and he suddenly feels a pang of guilt for intruding. He knows he shouldn’t, they tell him enough, but sometimes he wonders if they would have been better off without him; they were getting by together okay travelling from place to place, before he was with them. 

(“You don’t need to stay in the city on my account,” He’d told them once, not long after they’d settled into the abandoned store, moaning about the noise in the streets, reminiscing about the quiet of the countryside, the quiet they had left behind to see what was left amongst the rubble.

“We know that,” They’d said, “But we want to, you’re here.”

That had been the last conversation about it.)

Hoseok stirs first, says, “You went out without us?” as he rubs at his eyes.

Minhyuk ignores the question. Says, “They aren't just a rumour.” He can’t help but smile. “The synthetic organs -- they’ve arrived.”

Hoseok sits up, rubs sleep from his eyes. Asks, “How do you know?”

“The transporters from the space stations were here this morning, they've brought some with them. They were looking for help with the transplant surgeries. Looking for doctors and surgeons and -- hell, they'd probably have accepted  _ tailors, _ they seemed so desperate.” Minhyuk laughs. “I can’t believe it.”

Hyunwoo is awake too, now. “I didn't actually think the government gave a shit about us anymore,” he says, amplifying the thoughts of their entire generation.

“I wonder how they select transplant candidates?” Hoseok ponders. “Maybe there'll be a waiting list?”

“I assume that’s how it will be done. I guess we’ll just wait for instructions from the government.” Minhyuk feels excited, feels hopeful, for the first time in a long time. He almost doesn’t dare to say it, but can’t help but blurt out, “Maybe my mom will be considered.”

“This calls for a celebration. Come here.” Hoseok extends his hand towards Minhyuk.

Hyunwoo nods and smiles, and says, “Yeah, come back to bed for a while.”

Minhyuk does.

 

\--

 

Weeks pass and the people wait. 

Word spreads like wildfire, or faster, maybe. Word about the organs, about the prospect of hope. Word spreads and people flock into the city from the suburbs, rolling in on the roads that lead into the city, bringing sick family members and all willing to trade almost anything for a place on the waiting list for a transplant.

The city is busier than Minhyuk remembers it being in a long, long time. Farmers from surrounding towns bring in fruits and vegetables that haven’t been available in the city for years, and use them as currency, desperately trading their wares for coins, everyone hoarding as many as possible in case the transplants come at a price.

Minhyuk makes friends with an elderly man who spends his mornings outside the transporters’ shuttle stop, persuades him to trade pears and peaches for firewood. He shares them with Hoseok and Hyunwoo as the sun sets, the three of them lying in the long grass at the top of the hill that overlooks the desolation that is the city. Something is on fire out in the distance, on the road that leads towards the rolling hills to the West. This isn’t unusual. In a way, the fire is almost pretty this evening, dancing with the sunset in an orange glow.

Hyunwoo turns to him. “Still no news about a list?”

“Not even a whisper,” Minhyuk sighs.

Hoseok groans. Says through a mouthful of pear, “Fuck, this tastes so good. This was the best idea.”

Minhyuk agrees, but he can’t enjoy his fruit as much as he wants to. Is still distracted by the lack of word from above. “News must be coming, it has to be,” he says. “They  _ have _ to send someone down to compile a waiting list soon.”

“There’s still time for your mother.” Hyunwoo reaches out, squeezes Minhyuk’s hand tightly.

They all eat the rest of their pears in silence.

  
  


\--

 

News doesn’t come.  There are only trades, payments, and quiet begging. And then louder pleading and back alley deals.

No government representative is sent down, in fact no message is sent down at all. Just organs, organs that arrive in the night by transporters who don't talk much, their mouths set into thin lines as they load the freezer boxes into the back of trucks and watch them leave. 

Minhyuk doesn't tell his mom about his newfound sense of hope, but she hears about the organs anyway. Tells him, “You better not be thinking of trading all of your possessions for some baloney from the rich man’s playground up there. You need to save your coins for the future, not spend them on me.”

“Don't say things like that,” Minhyuk is resolute. “I'll come back if there is any news. Keep warm and make sure that you drink the full jar of water. You know dehydration doesn't help when you're sick.”

“I will. Are you still staying with those boys from outside of the city?” She asks. 

“We’re in our twenties, mom. That’s older than you were when you met Dad.” Minhyuk laughs and shakes his head “Boys...”

“It makes me feel too old to admit you’re a man now.” His mom smiles. “So you’re still-- with them?”

Minhyuk nods. He’s never discussed his relationship with Hoseok and Hyunwoo directly with her, but he guesses she understands. 

“They take good care of you,” she says. “That’s what matters to me.”

“I'm lucky, like that.” Minhyuk holds her hand.

She shakes her head. Says, “They're luckier.”

“Maybe I’ll have some good news next time I come over.” Minhyuk brushes her hair from her face. “Maybe you’ll be on the list.”

“Maybe,” his mom says. 

(She doesn’t sound sure.)

 

\--

 

Minhyuk keeps his ear to the street. Asks around, “Does anyone actually  _ know _ anybody who has received a transplant?” 

At first, no one does. But then the stories start to trickle out of the back corners of the city, and of other nearby pockets of society. Some success stories, of recovery and happiness and, most of all, hope for the future. But mostly the stories end differently - with failed transplants, with infected wounds and operations by amateurs gone wrong. There is still no word on any official organisation. 

“Why have they sent us the organs if they're not providing clean equipment to operate safely? Why no, anaesthetics… No trained surgeons?” Hyunwoo says as he blows out the candles that dance in their only intact window. “Something doesn't feel right about this.”

And Hyunwoo's instincts are usually spot on. 

It turns out that the government haven't provided clean equipment because they haven't even provided the  _ organs _ . 

They don't care, not about the people left on earth. Or, if they do care, they're at a loss for anything to do for them. They've given up on the landlocked. 

Instead, the organs have come by the way of a band of transporters, a vigilante crew who have been risking their jobs (and their place on the station) by stealing organs from the government supply and sending them down to earth.

“At this point, I think we're just collateral damage to those in charge.” Hoseok traces shapes in the dusty ground with his toe as they wander from the market, where the truth has been revealed, back towards home.

Minhyuk kicks at the dust. Shouts into the night, voice hoarse, blood boiling, “Screw us and just save yourselves, see if we fucking care.”

The lights from the main space station twinkle overhead, none the wiser of the people left behind. Minhyuk envies the ignorance of the children of the stations, those who have been born there, those who have never set foot on soil or sand. 

When he says this, Hyunwoo shakes his head. “Imagine never having swam in the ocean,” he says.

“I've never swam in the ocean,” Minhyuk points out. “The farthest I've travelled is to the outskirts of the city.”

“One day we'll take you, not that there's much left at the coast to see. They've built shuttle stops out there now, ones much bigger than the old one in the city.” Hoseok sidesteps a pothole in the ground. 

Minhyuk knows the stories of their life on the road, the life they led before they met him. Wonders if he's trapped them here with him, in a city on fire. 

Later, as they stash the coins they've made in the day inside an old deposit box that had once belonged to a bank that has long since closed, he broaches the subject. Says, “You two could go back to the coast, if you wanted. If you miss things there, I’d understand.”

“Travelling that far at the moment would be a waste of resources,” Hyunwoo says, locking the safe and sliding the piece of string with the key on back over his head. “And, anyway, there are two people I care about and neither of them are at the ocean.”

 

\--

 

People stop waiting for news. 

Those who had flocked into the city slowly start to drift away again, lacking faith that this really is the turning point Minhyuk had hoped _ so much _ for. The peaches run out, the pears soon after. 

It’s around this time, maybe a little before (the days blur together sometimes and time is hard to distinguish), that the transporters start to look different.

“Robots,” a woman down at the market tells Minhyuk as she re-soles his only boots and accepts a canteen of moonshine in return. “You can tell, from their eyes. They're-- colder. As cold as they get. Not their fault of course, they’re just not as human as the rest of us.”

Minhyuk wonders why robots are doing human work. About what this means, about what the government are trying to achieve. He spots Gunhee at the shuttle stop a couple of times, but he’s never close enough to ask him anything. The robots always seem to be watching, and Minhyuk isn’t sure whether they’re trustworthy or not.

The transporters, humans and not-so-human alike, stop handing out as many jobs to the people who hang around the shuttle stop. They start to look worried, cagey. Like they don’t know who is trustworthy and who isn’t either.

And then, eventually, the organs stop coming down to earth at all.

 

\--

 

Life goes somewhat back to normal for a while.

Of course, normal is clinging onto surviving and nothing more. Normal is no cure. Except now, people have lost any hope for normal ever changing. 

Normal breeds dissent and soon Minhyuk hears new rumours, rumours that spread in the form of covert whispers around the market and around the shuttle station, and eventually make their way across the rest of the city. Rumours that there are people from the station planning to work with people left on earth to form a coup against the government. 

Minhyuk listens.

 

\--

Hoseok seems unsure. “How are they even going to do it? The government is untouchable.”

“Nothing is untouchable,” Minhyuk points out. “There are people from the inside willing to help; people that can see we’re all just-- just dying down here on earth. That the disease is still spreading and there’s still no medication, no organs for us. Nothing like there is up on the space stations for the rich and important.”

“It sounds dangerous,” Hyunwoo says. 

“I’m willing to risk that,” Minhyuk replies.

“You?” Hoseok pauses. “You mean, you’re thinking of trying to get up there with them?”

“Yes, me.” Minhyuk says. “My mom is sick. If there is any chance it can help her, I need to be a part of this.”

Hyunwoo’s brow is creased. “What if the coup fails?”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Minhyuk counters. Hyunwoo always has to say the sensible thing. Minhyuk is grateful for it most of the time; he grounds the three of them, keeps their emotions in check, but in a way that shows he cares. Right now, though, Minhyuk doesn’t want to be kept in check. He wants to be a part of something. 

There is a long silence, only filled by Hoseok saying, “Well, I’m afraid of heights.”

Minhyuk laughs. Says, “I hear there are cabins with no windows on space station two. Perfect for cohabiting with someone who wants to pretend they’re on solid ground.”

“Can we have a small window? I’d feel claustrophobic without one,” Hyunwoo asks.

“Oh, you’ve changed. I thought five minutes ago the coup was going to fail?” Minhyuk raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t say that! I just-- I don’t want you to be disappointed again.” 

Minhyuk smiles. “We can have one, tiny window.”

 

\--

 

Minhyuk is approached in the market a few weeks later by a man who would be his father’s age, should his father still be alive. He has a scar across his chin and rough hands. He places one on Minhyuk’s arm and says, “We’re meeting to discuss things tonight. Round the back of here, after sunset.”

“I don’t know--” Minhyuk starts to lie.

“I’ve seen you hanging around.” The man cuts him off. “You want in, you’ll be there.”

Minhyuk goes. 

He listens, watches as the plans are drawn up. Apparently, this has been in planning for a long time, long before the organs. And now the group have word that people in useful positions -- transporters, government scientists and the like -- understand the plight of the people left on Earth. That they’re going to help. 

As the weeks draw on, plans are finalised. A date appears one morning, scrawled in blue paint on the crumbling brick front of the old police building and Minhyuk knows what it means. 

In six days they will storm the shuttle stop in the middle of the night and stow away in a shuttle ship heading back to the main space station, to the government quarters. 

In six days Minhyuk will leave behind the city, and within it, the only blessings he has left: his mother, Hoseok, Hyunwoo.

He hopes with every fibre of his being that he'll return to them.

 

\--

 

Minhyuk visits his mother. The girl is there again, playing hopscotch outside in the sun. She waves hello, doesn’t bother trying to stop him from going in. It never works, anyway.

“I’ll be gone for a while but when I come back, things will be better. You’ll get better,” Minhyuk tells his mom. “Hold on for a while longer, okay?” 

“I will,” his  mom replies, and he really does believe her.

He has to be up long before sunrise to head towards the shuttle stop. 

Regardless, the night before, he drags Hyunwoo and Hoseok through the city and up to the top of the hill,  _ their  _ hill and kisses them both fiercely.

The three of them lie in the grass and watch the lights from the station twinkle, thousands of feet above their heads. Minhyuk sits up and looks down at the people he loves. Says, “If I don't come back, go to the ocean without me, okay?”

“We either all come back, or none of us do. Hopefully the former,” Hoseok says. “Less chance of vertigo down here.”

“All of us?” Minhyuk feels like he might have vertigo right now. 

Hyunwoo stands up. “We make a good team, don't we?”

“It's not that! It's just -- you're  _ really _ going to join the coup with me?” 

“Like we’d watch you go alone. We’re all in this together.” Hoseok grins as he gets to his feet, helps Minhyuk up and pulls him along with them, following Hyunwoo down the hill and towards their home.

Hyunwoo strides ahead. “Come on, we need to get some proper sleep if we’re going to be down at the shuttle stop in, like, four hours.”

“But-- you seemed to be so wary. You said it would be  _ dangerous _ ,” Minhyuk reminds him. 

“Oh, it will be,” he says. “But I have a good feeling about how this will end.”

And as the three of them walk hand in hand, through the smoke filled streets of the only place he’s ever known, making their back to the tiny, crumbling store front they call home, Minhyuk has a good feeling too.   
  
  



End file.
